The Kidnapped And The Ransomed Part 21

Burton swore, when he released him, that he should work every Sunday in the year to make up lost time; and for five Sundays, he kept him all day in the field, visiting him occasionally, to see that he was not idle. After that, however, he was released at noon with his companions.

The next day after Frank was taken, "old man John" was brought in. He was not torn by the dogs, for on their approach he climbed a tree, where he remained till Elliott called them off. No trace of Lewis was discovered, and the hunter, with his dogs, went home.

About a fortnight after this, at midnight, Lewis came to Vollen's house. This was a cabin, near the kitchen; Vollen's wife being one of the house servants.

"Is you come in to stay?" said Vollen.

"Don' know; think I better?"

"Yes, I reckon you mought as well, for de dogs done tore Frank a'most to pieces."

"What you reckon dey'll do if I comes back?"

"Don' know; best ax ole ma.s.s'r--I'll go tell him you done come in."

Soon the master came to the door. "Well, Lewis," said he, "you had your race? Come back to stay, eh?"

"I don know, sir, I'll stay ef I can be left alone, and not git whipped to death."

"Well, you go to the kitchen and wait till morning."

The slave obeyed, though with many misgivings. Something within urged him to flee; but then he could not believe his master would allow him to be beaten more. It surely would not be for his interest to render him unfit for labor at a season when all the the forces he could summon were needed in the field.

The master rose at dawn; and sent a note to Burton, saying that Lewis had come in, and desiring him to come up "soon."

Promptly, with rope in hand, the overseer presented himself at the kitchen door. Lewis threw at him a glance of angry defiance. "No!"

cried he, as Burton attempted to tie him, "my ma.s.s'r yer;--he cun kill me if he will; but you shan't tie me, nor whip me-- nary one.

You's done enough o' dat dar."

"Cross your hands!" shouted Mr. McKiernan.

"Very well;" responded the slave, "If ma.s.s'r says so, you cun do it; but if he wasn't her, I'd die fus."

"Lewis," said his master, "I want Mr. Burton to make me a crop; and how can he do it, if you all are off to the woods?"

"I'se willin', sir, to help make you a c.r.a.p," replied the slave, "but when you gits such a mean oversee', whar whips all de time, I can't stand it."

"Burton," said the master, "you take your satisfaction out of him, and then give him an extra fifty for me, to make him tell who fed him when he was out."

With a grim smile upon his repulsive face, the overseer led Lewis to the smoke-house, and put him in the stocks; then, leaving him there to meditate upon the manifold benefits ensuing to his poor heathen race from being allowed to dwell in a Christian country, he went out to see that all his other subjects had commenced their daily toil in accordance with the orders he had given them.

After dinner, he went in to chastise his victim. He, fastened his wrists in their appropriate mortise, and then, lighting his pipe, sat down to his delightful task.

Burton was in his element. He wasted not his strength by violent exercise or undue excitement, for his long arms swayed leisurely in unison with his pleasant thoughts. He had plenty of time to "take his satisfaction," and at every cut of the cowhide that forced an extraordinary groan from the prostrate wretch before him, a gleam of fiendish exultation flitted across his savage face; and through his closed teeth he hissed: "Ah! that's a good one; it takes me to break a n.i.g.g.e.r in."

When he had given him enough for once, he called two of the boys, and ordered them to make "a bucket of strong pickle." and carry it to his house. "My wife," said he, "will put in some spirits of turpentine, and then it will do to rub down this gentleman."

They soon brought the brine, prepared according to his directions, and then, by his command, they washed poor Lewis from head to foot. Oh! how he shrieked and writhed as the stinging fluid penetrated every bleeding gash the cruel whip had made! Then, after giving him a few more cuts, as he said, "to beat the medicine in," Burton loosened his wrists, and, leaving his feet still in the stocks, went out and locked the door.

For four clays, the slave remained fast in the stocks; his loneliness unbroken, save by a daily visit from the overseer, who came in "just to give him a few cuts to wake him up." By this time his wounds were much inflamed, and he begged to be allowed to go to his cabin and put on clean clothes.

Burton granted this request; but placed him in charge of two other slaves, who were informed that if they did not bring him back when he had changed his clothes, they should take "the same bounty."

They led him to his cabin, and his wife called in several of the other women to see his back. Vina was one of these. She says: "When I went in the door, Lucy was a wettin' his s.h.i.+rt with warm water to loosen it from his back; and his two children, Charles and 'Muthis, was a cryin' like their hearts was done broke. Lucy soak the s.h.i.+rt a long time, till she think it done got loose; but a heap o'

times, when she tried to pull it up, it fetch up welts o' flesh about the size o' my finger 'long with it. Then the blood trinkle down his back, and 'peared like, he'd faint, constant. She wash his back till it done stop bleedin', and then she kivered it all over with tallered plasters. Then, when he got his clean clothes on, the men whar fotch him from the smoke-house, they carried him back. Lucy and her children stood in the door, and watched him till he done got out o' sight; and 'peard like, they all would sob theirselves to death."

This was Sunday. Early the next morning Lewis was taken out of his prison, and led by two men to the blacksmith's shop, to receive "the runaway's irons." An iron ring weighing fourteen pounds, was welded on his ankle; and to that was fastened one end of a heavy log-chain, the other end of which was brought up and pa.s.sed twice around his waist, where it was secured by a lock. A collar was then put around his neck, from which an iron horn extended on each side nearly to the point of the shoulder.

He was then sent to the field, and forced to work, though he could hardly drag himself along. Through all the long hot summer days those heavy irons galled his neck and ankle, and even on the Sabbath he had no rest. "Sometimes," says Vina, " 'peared like he would run crazy. But he never got no pity from them whar was the cause of all the trouble. They only laughed at his misery, makin'

out like thar's nuthin' bad enough for runaways."

One wet morning in the summer, Burton told Abram, a blacksmith, who was then headman of the hoe hands, to go to one of the bills to sc.r.a.pe cotton, as the bottom was too wet. Abram accordingly led his hands to the hill which he supposed Burton meant, and they all fell earnestly at work. Soon they saw the overseer coming with his grey horse at full gallop. "Why in h--l didn't you go where I told you?" shouted he to Abram.

"I thought this yer de place, Sir."

"You thought! You're not to think; you're to do."

Abram attempted to explain, but Burton grew furious; and at last he drew forth his pistol and shot the slave through the leg--thus crippling him for many months.

The master "cursed and bl.u.s.tered a heap" about this, but he was so sure that such a tight fellow must be a first rate overseer, that he could not think of turning him away.

Yet even he at length grew weary of the sight of his ragged, filthy people. "I say, Burton," said he one day, as he rode through the field, "how the devil can you work such a miserable gang of n.i.g.g.e.rs? Why don't you make them wash and mend their clothes?

"D--n 'em; I don't care how they look;" replied the overseer. "If they only work, I don't care if the lice eat 'em alive."

"Well, I do; and by G--d, they look too bad. I say, if they don't wash and mend their clothes, you give them the devil."

Vina stood near and listened with indignation to this order. "When we gwine wash?" cried she. "We got to work every day, Sundays and all; we ain't got no time to wash nor mend."

"What are you all doing nights, d--n you ?"

"We's a workin' for you, sir, all the time, day and night; and drove and whipped till we's half dead, any how."

He turned away. "Burton," said he, "you might as well give the women two hours by sun of a Sat.u.r.day to wash, for by G--d, they're too d--d filthy."

The next Sat.u.r.day, just as the sun was going behind the trees, Burton dismissed the women to go home and wash. But they would not please him by accepting that for "two hours by sun," and so on Monday morning they went out in the same tattered frocks--the rags sailing in the wind. They had every week washed their under garments by night--but this they kept a secret. They were determined to look as badly as they could, until their master should give them at least their Sundays to work for themselves.

The effect of Burton's constant whipping and crippling the hands was manifest in the fields. So many of the people were driven to the woods, or otherwise unfitted for their usual labors, that the corn was choked, and the cotton could scarcely be seen amid the tall, rank gra.s.s.

This unpromising state of his darling crop at length opened the master's eyes. He rode through the field one day when Burton was not there. "What the devil ails you all?" said he; "I never was in the gra.s.s like this."

"No wonder," replied one of the boldest men, "reckon you'll never git out de gra.s.s long's you keeps ole Burton yer. He knows nuthin 'bout farmin,' no how he des beats your people, and cuts 'em up constant; dat dar's all he know. Dem whars able to work at all can't do past half a day's work, kase dey's all so bruised and cut up."

" 'Pears like," says Vina, "this teched his heart. "He's mons's 'shamed o' bein' in the gra.s.s so much wuss 'an all his neighbors,"

Soon after the angry old man cursed the overseer, and ordered him off the place, and though Burton swore he would not go till he was ready, yet after a few weeks he departed.

For the discharge of this inhuman monster the master received no thanks. His servants knew he cared not for their sufferings, but only for the gra.s.s which waved so boldly in his fields of corn and cotton. To use the words of Vina, "when it come to that, they didn't try to git him out o' the gra.s.s. He done kep' that mean ole Burton thar all the forepart of the year, and let him cut 'em up 'cordin' to his own mercy, and now they wasn't gwine try to make a c.r.a.p. So that year we didn't make corn enough to last till June. We had to go half fed, and the mules got so poor they'd fall down in the plough. They didn't git nuthin' but fodder, for it come. mons's hard to have to buy corn."